Puerarin, also known as Pueraria lobata flavonoids, is a natural isoflavone carbon glycoside that is a key component of the medicinal efficacy of Pueraria lobata. Puerarin is clinically used in the treatment of cardiovascular disease, cancer, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes and diabetic complications because of its hypoglycemic, lipid-regulating, vascular-protective, antioxidant, anti-infective and insulin-sensitive index effects with few adverse effects.
01
Treatment of diabetes
Puerarin can treat diabetes by lowering blood glucose concentration, and also inhibits the activity of alpha-glucosidase, thus lowering blood glucose concentration for the purpose of treating diabetes. It was found that the treatment of type 2 diabetes patients with Puerarin drug can improve the body's sensitivity to insulin, and Puerarin drug can reduce insulin resistance, thus treating diabetes. Puerarin can also inhibit the production of TNF-α in plasma, improve the body's sensitivity level to insulin, and lower blood sugar level. In addition, Puerarin in diabetic retinopathy helps to reduce the resistance to blood flow in the fundic arteries, accelerates blood flow, promotes the dilation of muscular arteries, reduces the formation of local thrombosis, and has a preventive effect on diabetic retinopathy, and Puerarin also has a therapeutic effect on gestational diabetes.
02
Anti-tumor effect
Puerarin has a significant inhibitory effect on the proliferation of tumor cells, and has a therapeutic effect on tumor cells by promoting apoptosis of tumor cells. The results showed that compared with the control group, the expression levels of proliferation protein Akt decreased significantly in the group treated with Puerarin, while the expression levels of apoptosis proteins Bax, Fas, caspase-3 and caspase-8 increased, indicating that Puerarin could inhibit the proliferation of prostate cancer cells by regulating the activity of proliferation protein Akt. And the expression levels of both caspase-3 and caspase-8 were increased, indicating that Puerarin could inhibit the proliferation of prostate cancer cells by regulating the activity of proliferation protein Akt, and increase the expression of apoptotic proteins Bax and Fas, which could activate the apoptotic signaling pathway of caspase-3 and eventually lead to apoptosis. In addition, puerarin can also induce apoptosis in tumor cells through a mitochondria-dependent pathway. In hepatocellular carcinoma cells, cytochrome c released from mitochondria interacts with adenosine triphosphate and apoptosis protease to activate caspase-9 and caspase-3, leading to hepatocellular carcinoma cell-dependent apoptosis. Puerarin promotes apoptosis of tumor cells by activating the TLR4 /NF-κB pathway, thereby inhibiting tumor growth. In colon cancer cell lines, Puerarin promoted the activation of TLR4 expression factor, activated PI3K/Akt pathway, led to the expression of downstream target protein NF-κB transcription factor, elevated caspase-3 protein expression level, and induced apoptosis in colon tumor cells.
03
Protective effect on the liver
Puerarin has a protective effect on liver injury caused by alcoholism. Glutathione ALT, glutathione AST and total cholesterol CHOL were abnormally increased in liver injury caused by various factors. It was found that the expression levels of ALT, AST and CHOL were significantly higher in the model group compared to the control group, while the levels of each protein were lower in the geranium-treated group than in the model group. In addition, it was found that the expression of ALT, AST, ALP and pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α were significantly lower in the geranium-treated group compared with the control group in a model of chronic alcohol-induced liver injury, suggesting that geranium could attenuate chronic alcohol-induced liver injury by modulating the inflammatory process.
04
Anti-arrhythmic and anti-anginal effects
Studies have shown that Puerarin injection has certain effects on the treatment of angina pectoris in coronary heart disease. The mechanism includes: firstly, lowering heart rate and blood pressure level, improving vital signs, reducing myocardial oxygen consumption, dilating coronary arteries, improving myocardial hypoxia, ischemia and blood rheology indexes; secondly, lowering blood viscosity, which has the effect of softening blood vessels, improving atherosclerosis, repairing vascular endothelial cells and stopping disease deterioration. The study confirmed that the application of deer antler gum injection for the treatment of elderly patients with angina pectoris of coronary heart disease can improve the morbidity while causing vasodilatation, alleviating hypoxia-ischemia and further improving various indexes such as blood rheology and myocardial oxygen consumption index with ideal effect.
